Page 2 of Poison Wood

“Another one?” the bartender says, walking up and pointing to my empty glass.

I nod to her.

I could have ordered this hotel’s notorious Gold Martini, garnished with 24-karat gold flakes, but since it’s $125 a drink, I opted for a scotch instead. Besides, I hate vodka.

I try but fail to stop the flood of high school memories unleashed on me since reading the article about the skull found at Poison Wood Therapeutic Academy for Girls. Vodka had been our drink of choice at Poison Wood because that was our math teacher’s drink of choice. We stole her stash every chance we got. A crime she couldn’t report because having booze on the grounds was a fireable offense.

Stealing was the first thing I learned how to do when I got to Poison Wood. Most girls there had already mastered the trait. But I’d come in grossly unprepared. The punishment of Poison Wood never fit my crime as a disobedient teen. I’d been caught with a boy in my room. We’d both been bumbling idiots who didn’t even get the chance to do anything worth punishing. My father, Judge Mac Meade, barged in and saw us partially clothed and started researching all-girls schools the next day. He was known for his tough sentences. I was no exception. And he was no exception to the powerful parents at the school he found.Judges, DAs, state senators, and at least one governor all had daughters who attended that school. A real Louisiana who’s who.

The bartender sets a fresh drink in front of me, and I swirl around the one large round ice cube before taking a sip.

I lean back against my soft leather bar chair and check the time. It’s 6:45 in Louisiana. My father and his wife, Debby, will probably be eating dinner, but I’ve put off calling him long enough.

He answers on the first ring, and I hear him chewing when he says, “Hey, kid.”

“Hey, Dad.”

I sigh.

“What is it?” he says.

“Did you see the Poison Wood article?”

There’s a pause, then, “I saw it.”

“When?”

“A few days ago.”

I swirl the ice cube in my glass again. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Oh, Rita.”

“That’s not an answer, Dad.”

“Let it be,” he says, his voice sounding tired. “You’re always wanting a story. That story is over.”

I don’t inform him of the text messages from a stranger that say otherwise.

“She was there, Dad. Heather was at the school the whole time.” I let out a slow breath. “Oh my God.”

“Don’t think about it.”

“How can I not? I was there.” The scotch sours in my stomach. The school was building that addition my senior year. They were calling it a wellness room, but they added it onto the dank basement of all places. “The article says her skull was found in the wall. How is that possible?”

My father built the farmhouse where I grew up. He drew the plans; he organized the subcontractors. If anyone can talk about construction details, it’s him.

“It wasn’t really in the wall, just on the outside of it. In Louisiana, basements aren’t commonplace. When they are, you’d damn well better put a French drain in. That’s what the contractor was adding around the perimeter your senior year.”

I remember that ten-foot-deep trench being dug and our headmaster yelling at us all to steer clear of it or someone could get hurt. Is that what happened to Heather? Instead of running off, she slipped and fell in. But if that’s the case, why was a man sitting in prison? Why was a stranger reaching out to me and telling me to be careful?

“My guess is,” my father continues, “in 1919, when the school was built, the architect added that basement as a storm shelter or maybe a place to stay cool when it was a hundred degrees outside. Either way, he’s lucky the elevation is a little higher in that part of the Kisatchie. Otherwise that school would have had a pool under it instead of a basement.”

Was it lucky, though? That basement is turning out to be nothing but trouble.

“Dad,” I say, turning the tables. “Tell me about the evidence against Johnny Adair.”

“Rita, the man confessed,” he says, his voice hardening. “You know that. There was blood all over that caretaker’s cottage,” he adds. “It was everywhere. There were hair samples. Hell—”